2018228 – Friday – Portland to Carpenter Rocks

20181228 – Friday – Portland to Carpenter Rocks

Well, I don’t know whether it was hot last night or not because I slept like a log.

I had a long sleep yesterday afternoon, and I remember writing that I probably would be wide awake at midnight, but NO, I slept right through till 7 am Friday morning.

How wonderful.  I feel so rested and renewed.

I am going to have to somehow get a new pair of white trousers on this trip because my current pair is literally falling off me. 

They were a pair that had a thin cotton belt around the waist, but I discarded this early in the piece because it was unnecessary to use it to keep my trousers up.  But now, I NEED that belt.

I am losing weight so easily now, my hips are just melting away.

No one can tell me that this “diet” doesn’t work. It does, and I am feeling so good with it too. Thank you Darren and “Magic Pill,” and Dr Tim Noakes!!

Well soon I will tidy my “home” up and be on my way I think, to find somewhere nice for breakfast.

Michelle L posted on fb that it is her mother Cheryl’s birthday.

I have such good memories over so many years of  Sheryl and Theo.

My memories begin when their son Cliff was 14 years old and visiting Adelaide for Easter Camp.

My children were all around that age at the time and children from Melbourne would want to come to the Easter Camp at Waikerie on the River Murray.

In order to attend the camp they had to be in the care of an adult, so year after year I would get requests from various of the Melbourne young people to stay with me at Easter Camp.

Well to be their guardian for the camp, I would need to travel three or four times up to Waikerie to the camp site prior to the camp to set up my camp arrangements.

I had about half a dozen blue tents and my trailer (this same trailer that my Dad made for me all those years ago) and that had two “bedrooms and a kitchen attached.” 

I used to set up my “army camp” and bring wood from Mt Mary for my necessary cooking fires and the large tripod Dad had made for me for cooking in my Dutch oven over a camp fire.

One camp I even put on a roast dinner which comprised a leg of lamb and baked vegetables.

Well, I remember Cliff was only 14 at the time, so that is how long I have known his mother Sheryl.

Since then I have often met up with them at Ringwood and now at Mornington. 

Once I remember I asked Sheryl about her life in Sri Lanka prior to coming to Australia and she told me her life story. 

It was fascinating and I remember she dictated her story to me and it is somewhere on my external Hard Drive to this day.

That HD also has a history. 

While I was on my last journey up the east coast of Australia, earlier in 2018 I needed my HD and so my friend Tim copied the data from my old HD to a new one, and he now keeps my old external HD in a “safe place” for safe keeping. 

One day when I am dead and gone, maybe one of my grandchildren may be interested in my history and will explore the  documents it contains.

I don’t think anyone would ever have stored so much data as I have over their life-time.

When I moved out of my properties I ended up with 100 tote boxes of papers and documents all stored on the verandah of my new home. 

To process this mountain of information, each day I would go through the documents in the boxes photographing the “good stuff” and then getting rid of the rubbish.  

It took me 2 years to process and get rid of all those boxes on my verandah. 

So that HD contains my entire life-history, and amounted, if I remember rightly, to about 32,000 documents, diaries and letters and “stuff.”

As I was packing up and walking to drop off some rubbish a woman came up to me and introduced herself as Gay and asked me if she could see inside my trailer.

She and her sister Rosie were curious about how my trailer “worked.” 

I ended up having a cup of tea with them.

There van was one of those little “pop tops,” and Gay said it was “new” to them and replaced a little “A” frame van that had taken too much effort in setting up and putting down.

And they wanted to know how economical my set up was/is.

Well, my little set up must be THE most economical set up of all time, both in cost and use of energy.

I can be in my little trailer and bedded down for the night in just a couple of minutes. 

It is just a matter of taking out my one box and two small tarpaulins for the ground, and then climbing in.

They waned to know what I did about food and so I ended up telling them all about “The Magic Pill” and Dr Tim Noakes and the no-carbs diet.

So I told them that breakfast was bacon and eggs, lunch was ribs and baked cauliflour and carrots and trombone, and for the night Kranski sausage and some nuts, purchased from the IGA store. A bit of a mixture but it is what I have ended up with today.

They told me they were headed to Carpenter Rocks, and I decided to divert to visit there as well.

I remember that years ago, back in the 1950’s Des M used to spend many a holiday at Carpenter Rocks and I had always wondered what the place was like.

Well it is like a fishing village, with a very sheltered harbour with lots of big boats moored in the quiet waters there.

A two minute drive from the beach is a huge free camping facility, and so along with many others, but spread out well apart from each other, I am now all set up in my van ready for, hopefully a good sleep later tonight.

It has been a hot day, but it is cooling off now, and  inside my trailer the temperature is comfortable because of my insulation.  

So glad I got it installed.

I have ordered a slab of water bottles from the local store which I will pick up tomorrow around 9.00 am.

I don’t use my container of water except for cleaning my teeth and washing.

I carry a lot of bottled water with me, so fresh water is on tap all through the day and night.

My Solar panel continues to work like a charm, so internet is on so I can interact with my friends.

I got Gay to take photo of me but there was something wrong with the camera on her phone and the picture was distorted so I can’t or won’t use it!